Chapter 2: Bringing Pity Back In
The Scholastics (c. 1200 - 1700) were theologians/ philosophers of mendicant orders (i.e. Dominicans and Franciscans, later Jesuits) who dominated the European universities for nearly five centuries. Early Modern philosophers like Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes saw scholastic's theories, which were deeply embedded with Aristotelian philosophy, as wrongheaded.
But the Scholastics had ideas on what we would now call human rights, like the right to access all of the free lands of the Earth and the right to be heard in any dispute (66).
Thomas Hobbes had argued that man had no rights other than the right to self-preservation. Hobbes had reduced human sociability to nothing but calculated self-interest (egoism). It had "stripped the human personality of any capacity for love or tenderness or even simple fellow-feeling..." (67) The challenge for 18th century philosophers would be to restore the status of human rights in moral philosophy without having it depend on a the idea of a benevolent deity and have society based on something more than fear.
The Peace of Westphalia (1648) - the beginnings of international cooperation in Europe.
The Peace of Westphalia was a series of peace treaties signed in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster, effectively ending the European wars of religion. These treaties ended the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) in the Holy Roman Empire between the Habsburgs and their Catholic allies on one side, and the Protestant powers (Sweden, Denmark, Dutch, and Holy Roman principalities) and their Catholic (France) Anti-Habsburg allies on the other.
The Treaties of Westphalia ended a tumultuous period which saw the deaths of approximately eight million people. The peace negotiations involved a total of 109 delegations representing European powers, including Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III, Philip IV of Spain, the Kingdom of France, Christina of the Swedish Empire, the Dutch Republic, the Princes of the Holy Roman Empire, and sovereigns of the free imperial cities.
The Peace of Westphalia established the precedent of peaces established by diplomatic congress, and a new system of political order in central Europe, based upon the concept of co-existing sovereign states. Inter-state aggression was to be held in check by a balance of power. A norm was established against interference in another state's domestic affairs. As European influence spread across the globe, these Westphalian principles, especially the concept of sovereign states, became central to international law and to the prevailing world order. The idea of a "Republic of Europe" arose from the Westphalian meetings.
The contrasts between the ancient Epicureans and the ancient Stoics, and their relationships to ancient skepticism were widely taught in European universities in the 18th century...
More on ancient skepticism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism
John Locke's attack on innate ideas...
In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, published in 1690, Locke held that the human mind at birth was table rasa, a blank slate. It contained no ideas and all subsequent ideas of the mind were created from "sensations" (sensory input of the five senses) and the mind's ability to construct complex ideas, such as order, beauty, and liberty, from simple ones.
Locke's book, along with Isaac Newton's 1687 book Principia Mathematica, which described physical motion in mathematics, set the stage for describing the human mind in scientific theory. Locke's book was widely read in the 18th century. It damaged the medieval scholastics claim that God-implanted "first precepts" or Descartes "clear and simple first principles" were the basis of man's natural sociality.
Theorists of Moral Sentiment
Samuel Pufendorf (1632 - 1684) German (a precursor)
While accepting Hobbes' claim that societies arose out of nature without some divine plan, and that man thinks of his own welfare before the welfare of others, he disagreed with Hobbes that societies remained morally static. For Pufendorf states themselves constituted "moral persons." Through his own will, man had created not the artificial state of Hobbes, but a natural state with its own moral qualities beyond the moral views of any individual. He maintained human nature belonged to all individuals and the individual can only live a social life with those he holds to be equal and treat all members of society as equals. This is a quality of man's natural instincts, not his calculating reason. Men (people) form governments not in calculated self-interest, but from an instinct to bond together.
Third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671 - 1713) English (another precursor)
Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, once tutored by John Locke, became the first critic of Locke's attack on innateness. For him, Locke's philosophy meant that there were no universal moral principles, that all morality was local (relative to a society).
"Mr. Locke threw all order and virtue out of the world... Innate is a word he poorly plays upon... The question is not about the time the ideas enters... but whether the constitution of a man be such that, being adult and grown up, ... the idea and sense of order, administration, and a God will not infallibly, inevitably, and necessarily spring up in him."
While Shaftesbury did not have a singular theory of his own, his criticism of Locke was to have an influence on the moral sentimentalists, particularly Francis Hutcheson.
Francis Hutcheson (1694 - 1746) Scottish
Hutcheson's theory of Moral Sentiment was influential on later philosophers.
Famous Discussed later in the course:
David Hume (1711 - 1776) Scottish
Adam Smith (1723 - 1790) Scottish
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